What Does Exodus 20:6 Mean in the King James?
And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Faithful love reaches thousands, while the line before names iniquity’s reach as three or four generations.
THE MEANING
God’s faithful love reaches to thousands of those who love and keep the commandments. Here, keeping carries the sense of guarding with attention, giving love the shape of sustained care for what God says. That reach opens far beyond the three or four generations named in the preceding line.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that inherited harm has the widest reach is undone here: the text gives faithful love a span of thousands, against the three or four generations named just before.
THE ROOT
חֶסֶד
chesed
GROWS FROM
ח־ס־ד
ḥ-s-d
Faithful, loyal love; steadfast kindness.
Chesed joins kindness to loyalty and keeps relationship over time. The KJV’s “mercy” carries more than a moment of pity here: it is faithful love with staying power, extended to thousands.
ALSO GROWS
chasid: A faithful or devoted person.
חָסִיד
This related form shows the same root describing one marked by loyal devotion.
chasadim: Acts or expressions of faithful love.
חֲסָדִים
The plural form makes chesed visible in repeated acts of steadfast kindness.
שֹׁמְרֵי
shomrei
GROWS FROM
ש־מ־ר
sh-m-r
Guard, watch over, preserve.
The word rendered “keep” carries the sense of guarding and watching over; the commandments are held in careful attention. Beside “love,” it presents keeping as love’s attentive shape.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: A guard or watchman.
שֹׁמֵר
This branch makes the watchfulness within “keep” concrete.
mishmeret: A watch, charge, or guard duty.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
It shows shamar as sustained care for something entrusted.
THE PATTERN
Love for God takes visible form in keeping God’s commandments.
Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;If ye love me, keep my commandments.For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.THE THREAD
Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.Both verses use חֶסֶד (chesed, faithful love), and both place its reach at thousands. Exodus 34:7 sets that span alongside consequences reaching the third and fourth generation, making the scale contrast in Exodus 20:6 explicit.
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